Pleasant
by theslitheenthatlived
Summary: Hermione is sick of life being nothing more than pleasant. Draco shows her how much more it can be.
1. Chapter 1

Pleasant.

The white light of the screen in Hermione's office was starting to strain her eyes, she'd been working far too hard for far too long. She looked away from her brand new ministry edition laptop, the ministry had finally updated its methods technologically;  
this was an additional idea to close the gap between muggle and wizarding culture. Her eyes settled on a picture of her first day at ministry, with her arms comfortably draped around Ron's waist, and she started to wonder if she'd done the right thing  
rejecting his proposal the previous night. Ron had done nothing wrong, they'd been together for years; it was pleasant. But that was it. Pleasant. Hermione knew there was more out there, there had to be, than something Pleasant. She still felt like  
she'd made the wrong choice, but her feeling of loss was more to do with her loss of family, of the Weasleys, than losing Ron. But it still hurt.

Realising it was probably time to go home, she got up and packed her things. Hermione then heard a knock on door, and Ginny Weasley walked in. Ginny was dressed to impress, and ready for a night out. She looked at Hermione with disdain. "what happened  
to 'lets go out on Friday, I'll meet you at seven'?" Hermione thought that was obvious; she dumped Ron yesterday. Ginny seemed todisagree, and gave hermione an hour to meet her at the leaky cauldron to start their night out.

Hermione put on the nicest outfit she could find and enough makeup to make her face look like she hadn't just spent the last 9 hours working. She met Ginny at the bar of the leaky cauldron and they took a table, the place filled up quickly and it turned  
out there was a band playing. The music they played was good, and Ginny was really enjoying it, but all hermione could think was "Pleasant." She was sick of pleasant. She headed to the bar for another drink and caught a flash of blond hair in her  
peripheral vision. She turned and saw that it belonged to none other than Malfoy, her school bully. Just as she noticed him, he noticed her and walked over. They started, awkwardly, to make conversation, it wasn't made easy by the noise so they stepped  
outside. They hadn't talked since Lucius' trail, he had been imprisoned. The very briefly updated each other on their working lives, realising they were both researching some similar things they exchanged numbers with a promise of giving each other  
what they had learnt so far. He asked how things were with Ron and the previously awkward conversation came to a full stop. Malfoy noticed something was up and simply said "that good, huh." Ginny appeared then, saving Hermione from an awkward situation.  
"There you are! Lets go!" And Hermione was dragged round the corner to a muggle club.

She really enjoyed the club, the heavy beat pulsed through her body; and light made her feel slightly disoriented, like she existed in a dimension out with her previous one. This feeling was enhanced as she drank. So she kept drinking, and drinking. Ginny  
left around 2 o'clock, but Hermione wanted to stay, to stay numb. At around 3 the club emptied the final remaining people onto the street and Hermione scrambled for her phone. She fumbled with it for a while before managing to, she thought, call Ron.

"RON, ron, RON, r-o-o-o-o-o-n, caaan yooooo pick me up?" she managed to stumble through the sentence; just.

"This is Draco" came the sleepy reply

"We-e-e-ell you can come then" she instructed.

Hermione managed to make it over to the edge of the pavement, to sit, and take of her shoes. She pulled out her wand, ready to call the night bus, or apparate herself home when she heard a voice behind her. "Granger I wouldn't do that if I were you."  
She turned and almost fell off the pavement. "Let's get you some rest" chuckled Malfoy as he reached for her arm and apparated them to his flat. His touch made her feel simultaneously nervous, excited and comforted. He guided her to the couch and  
lay her down, turning to go to bed himself. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Hermione pulled, lowering his face to her and allowed their lips to touch. She found kissing also muted her senses a little so moved farther into the kiss, fuelling  
it. Malfoy was shocked at first but began to kiss her back, before realising how inappropriate this was. He pushed Hermione away, knowing the kiss would be viewed as a drunken mistake in the morning.

Morning came and Hermione woke up with the kind of headache that leads one to know there's something they should feel incredibly guilty about without having any idea what it was. She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, memories of the night  
before trickling into her conscious. Then she remembered what she should regret. Hermione had kissed Malfoy the night before. She thought about the kiss; how little it had been at first and how much it grew into; how even now thinking about it made  
her smile; how when they touched it was like electricity was shocking through her very being; she thought about how Malfoy had tasted, and realised what was missing with Ron. That electricity, that power was something she never experienced in years  
with Ron. Kissing Malfoy was so much more than pleasant, and she knew that she could never go back to just pleasant again.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione sat up and immediately realised how bad an idea that was. The room moved around her as her dizziness attempted to settle. She lent forward, attempting to get some kind of control over herself. But her head just felt awful, like it was heavier than the rest of her body and it would topple her in seconds.

Malfoy chose that moment to walk in, hermione leant forward with her head in her hands. He smirked at her situation and searched the cupboards for some hangover potion. Each Cupboard shut with a bang that went straight through Hermione's head. Malfoy searched every single cupboard in the kitchen, he was enjoying this a little too much. He found the bottle and pulled it from the cupboard, Hermione could practically feel the bottle scraping the inside of her head as it moved along the cupboard floor. "Hangover Potion, It'll get better" Malfoy muttered with a cup held out for Hermione. She drunk it gladly and within two or three quiet minutes was feeling much better. Malfoy was making breakfast but Hermione needed to get home. She wasn't sure whether she wanted a repeat of last night's kiss but she knew sitting here, Malfoy looking so good in a simple t-shirt and shorts, was not a rational place to consider it.

"I'd really better go, thanks for everything" said Hermione

"Look, about the kiss-" Malfoy started to say

"A mistake." Interrupted Hermione with a feeling of complicated longing

"yeah, a mistake. You were drunk" said Malfoy less surely. Hermione

noticed his lack of confidence and immediately regretted saying anything.

She looked up at his mouth and wondered if it was just because she was drunk.

His lips just looked so… kissable. Maybe she was still a little drunk.

Hermione left Malfoy's flat and apparated home. Life continued. Hermione worked hard. Day after day went past at the office and she never thought about her night at Malfoy's, except… sometimes her mind drifted and she couldn't help imagining Malfoy's touch on her lips… But that didn't happen often, not often enough to consider doing anything about it - or so she told herself. Work had been particularly stressful lately. Her department, the Department for Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures, was being totally overhauled and renamed: Department of Magical Creature Welfare, lead by Hermione. This meant she was hiring and moving around employees, totally restructuring the department. The ministry was therefore sending her 6 school leavers and an expert to manage them to help her with all the paperwork and fiddly bits of such a big change. They were arriving that afternoon so Hermione was preparing them some work to get them started.

An hour later Hermione heard a knock at the door, she looked at the time; this was her expert. She opened the door and saw Malfoy casually waiting outside.

"You're the expert!"she gasped.

"um.. yeah. I helped Potter rebuild the auror department last year" Malfoy reasoned logically.

"of course, sorry. I didn't know who I was expecting, but it wasn't you" she

apologised.

"gee thanks Granger. I love it when you give me compliments like that it really

keeps me buzzed to work with you" came the sarcastic reply. Hermione opened her mouth to apologise again but Malfoy quickly cut in with a smile. "Just joking Granger, Its fine."Hermione smiled up at him, a true smile, one of her truest of the last few days of stress. She looked straight into his eyes and noticed his smile was true too, the only real smile she'd ever seen on his face. She noticed something else in eyes, although smiling there were beautiful shards of pain settled in the depths, and felt something drawing them together. She stumbled forward, a sharp jolt into reality. Fumbling, she handed Malfoy the folder of work for the apprentices and went back to work. Malfoy lingered in the doorway. "Granger." Hermione looked up, finally taking Malfoy in. "Its nice to see ya. Especially when you're - y'know - sober." He shot her another brilliant jokey smile and left her office.

Breath left Hermione's mouth with a hiss. She didn't even know she'd been holding it until he left. She hated that he this effect on her. What was she even doing? She almost literally fell on floor just because he smiled at her. Hermione would have to grow up; this was a stupid schoolgirl crush and she wasn't a child anymore. But then she pictured Malfoy in his Navy Suit and almost crumbled and Hermione realised this wasn't going away. Hermione would have to get Malfoy out of her system, she just needed to figure out how.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been days since Malfoy's First appearance in Hermione's Office, and things were settling down. Malfoy was very good at his job so Hermione didn't have much reason to look him out. Occasionally one of his team would need to be spoken to but he was very efficient. Hermione was thankful for this, she was under enough stress; but there was a small voice, deep inside her head, that longed to see him more often, If only to look at him.

Hermione had organised to meet him to talk about his progress over the last few days. As soon as she opened her office door to let him in she could tell she was not going to have the composure she would like in the meeting. Malfoy was wearing another perfectly fitted suit but had clearly been running late for the meeting: his hair was slightly out of place, settling perfectly around his face with slight waves breaking free and drifting over his eyes; exertion causing his face to go slightly red and his eyes to widen, showing a flash of energy across them. Malfoy's hole look screamed "sex."

He entered her office and they talked for about an hour going over his teams performance and deciding on some improvements they could make. Malfoy seemed to be aware Hermione was distracted, but didn't say anything. They got up to say goodbye rather than that the question "Doyouwanttograbadrinksometime?" splurged from Hermione's mouth. Malfoy gave her a look of confusion.

"Do you want to go for a drink some time?" Hermione was inwardly cringing but the words kept falling out of her mouth "- with me, not just drink something. Like us - together drinking - maybe." She could already hear the snide rejection coming her way.

"Yeah, Friday?" Malfoy smiled. "Leaky cauldron, 7 oclock? - but I'm not picking you up of the pavement again"

"See you then, Malfoy." Hermione was smiling too now; malfoy left her grinning.

Hermione was nervous, more than she had been in while. Her date with Malfoy was tonight and she wasn't sure how it would go, they'd fallen out at work a lot over the last few days. She left the house wearing a casual dress that came just above her knee and that she'd dressed up with a nice necklace and some heels.

She found Malfoy at the bar and joined him. "Granger, looking good tonight love"

"Not so bad yourself." He was wearing tight jeans with a button down shirt, his look remained simple, yet incredibly effective. "Look, about work-"

"Nothing to worry about tonight Granger, in fact, can we go for first names tonight? It feels awfully formal for a date."

"Yes," she paused,"Draco" They both smiled.

"Hermione"

The barmaid came over "So what'll it be then?" she asked. They ordered and took a table. The two of them talked, getting to really know each other. They had more in common than either of them had been willing to admit before this night. A few hours later Hermione made her apologies and got up to leave. Draco came with her to the door.

They paused. Hermione took a step closer to Draco. She looked up, straight into his eyes. He looked into hers and leant down, taking her mouth in his. They kissed for an eternity before she broke off. She looked into his eyes again, this time with a disappearing sheen of pleasure in them, and kissed him harder. Draco apparated them to his flat while her eyes were closed. She opened them when they arrived. He was smirking, looking her up and down. "Hermione you look positively delectable tonight" She was ruined. They kissed harder, Hermione pulling her legs around his waist. Draco took a few steps backward, opening the door to his bedroom. He lowered her on to the bed and kissed her deeper, allowing both their minds to fill with fireworks. She began to undo his shirt buttons taking in his chest and abdomen. He broke the kiss to remove her dress over her head. They lay for a moment taking each other in. Before he reunited their lips, like long gone lovers, and both of the them were gone.

Hermione lay in draco's arms for a while, enjoying the feeling of his chest against hers. Draco lay playing with hermione's hair. Contentment settled on them as a wave of peace passed over. Before long they were both asleep. Two lovers entwined in perfect harmony.


End file.
